A sample of Tielman Cheaney’s caricature work, updated monthly.
Johnny Depp
This caricature is another example of me being unable to find something to exaggerate. When that happens, I just pretty much draw a portrait, although if I can make bigger hair or something I’m happy to do it. Johnny Depp has big, expressive eyes and a tiny mouth, so it shouldn’t have been too difficult, but you never know where the muse is going to strike.
Chris Rock
Chris Rock caricature by Tielman Cheaney.
So, teeth are one of those aspects of caricature that are hard to get right. Try to clearly delineate every tooth, and you end up with a pretty weird-looking mouth. It just looks like sloppily-made graph paper wedged in there. Don’t put enough detail, and it looks like you forgot to draw something important.
Fortunately, I’m really making fun of his big teeth here. So I just made them big, uneven, and prominent. The lower lip overlapping the microphone was a mistake if I remember correctly, but it works.
Angelina Jolie
Sure, I could have made the lips bigger. But there are already plenty of caricatures of her with a life-raft for a mouth. I’m being gentle.
This one’s pretty old. I think it may have been one of my first caricatures every where I was really trying to exaggerate. Prior to this, I was just trying to make it look like the person. By any means necessary.
Bill Clinton
Here he is, the 42nd President of the U. S. A., Bill Clinton.
In caricatures, we’re always trying to spot the unique features on everyone’s face. And with Mr. Clinton, there’s plenty of uniqueness. His eyes are small, nose is large, eyebrows are nonexistent, haircut is signifigant, and face is red. But there’s nothing to unique about his mouth. So I just left it out.
As a freelance artist, I’m often tapped to draw political cartoons for people that want to make t-shirts and bumper stickers to promote their points of view. During the Clinton years, I was approached time and again to make fun of the president. The captions, situations, and angles of attack varied, but one thing was constant: Everyone wanted me to draw him with a cigar. I can’t think of another representation of the years in office as iconic as that cigar.
James Dean
Here’s the first caricature ever uploaded to http://cartoonvegas.com. James Dean, by Tielman Cheaney. Uploaded in 2008, I must have drawn this earlier, in 2006 or 2007.
I just learned two interesting things about James Dean:
1: His front teeth were fake. He would pop them out to surprise dinner guests.
2: He died before Rebel Without a Cause, the movie that made him an icon, was released. And, two hours before his fatal car crash, he got a speeding ticket.
Rosie O’Donnell
I found this great picture of Rosie O’Donnell where she was talking or singing with her mouth wide open. Seemed appropriate for a caricature. It’s fun to draw a big ol’ mouth. Or any big ol’ feature, really.
When I reposted this, I got to wondering where Rosie O’Donnell was these days. Took a look at her Twitter feed and came away with these impressions: Yay Tonys, yay daughters, boo Trump and guns. Social media is a window into people’s lives, but it’s a tiny, tiny window.
Steve Carrell
Here’s a caricature of Steve Carrell as grumpy Michael Scott from The Office. I hadn’t seen much of The Office when I drew this. If I do it again I think I’ll commit to a more stern expression. With the eyebrow raised he seems to have a little bit of dry wit, but wit isn’t Michael Scott’s strong suite.
Mathew McConaughey
When I was drawing this caricature, about three people walked past and said “Oh! Owen Wilson!” I thought I had a great likeness of Matthew McConaughey. Caricatures can be frustrating.
If you’re drawing someone from a straight-on, frontal view, they’d better have an amazing face shape from that direction. Matthew McConaughey does have a big, kind of square head, but I think it was a mistake to draw him from this angle. His brow is so prominent and the straight shot doesn’t show that. A 3/4 angle would capture more interesting details.
Guest Six
This guy was a drummer from Brazil, about six and a half feet tall. I had more fun drawing his hair than anything.
Notice the squared-off fingers in the caricature. If you’re going to draw foreshortened fingers (and toes, too), it’s easier if you’re able to just make them rectangles. Common wisdom is to draw them as cylinders, but I find it easier to imagine them as blocky shapes, connected like a jacob’s ladder:
Just imagine three of these sections as one finger
If you’re drawing hands from the side, it’s easier to think of them as scoops. From the palm front, a square sunrise. But for foreshortening, which is the hardest angle from which to draw four fingers and a thumb, breaking it up into little rectangles is the way to go.
Samuel L. Jackson
It’s a Samuel L. Jackson caricature, drawn shortly after Revenge of the Sith came out. We were all used to seeing bald Sam in a robe frowning at Jedis and speaking in a calm, measured tone. This ain’t your Snakes on a Plane Samuel L.
If I remember right, this was when I was trying to work out how to use skim light and white space most effectively. When done right, it can look pretty cool and three-dimensional, and it makes a big difference when drawing someone dark. You can see at least two skin tones blended together on all the colored areas of his face, and skipping those to leave it white is a real time saver. But when I was trying to figure it out, a lot of customers, mostly kids, would say: “Why’d you leave that part white? You forgot to color it there!” So this drawing, I think, was the first time I really left a lot of white space on a black man’s face and was happy with the result. And no kids have complained about it either.